Guestbook

There are messages that are a bit naive and clumsy but very sincere. There are pages of paper filled with heart drawings, school poems and promises "Let's not forget each other tomorrow" that sound so gentle and simple but make the heart ache.

For us, the late 8X generation, scrapbooks were extremely valuable. The notebooks were decorated in many colors, some people used locked notebooks, others used spiral notebooks.

After carefully writing the first page, I passed the notebook to my classmates. Usually, they started by introducing their names, birthdays, hobbies, addresses, and home phone numbers (if any). Those who had time to take photos in Korea immediately pasted them on, while others stuck their ID photos on as well.

I still clearly remember the first time I wrote a yearbook for you. The pen in my hand was shaking, after the general introduction, I didn’t know where to start. What should I write to let you know how much I appreciate you?

That I will remember the way you laughed when you joked with me, remember the afternoons when we all brought green mangoes, guavas, and chili salts to take advantage of recess to gather in groups of three or five to eat, chat, and laugh happily, remember the time we cycled nearly ten kilometers together to buy Hoa Hoc Tro newspaper...

Some people choose to write a few short lines in their autograph book, while others meticulously decorate every corner, pressing in each royal poinciana flower petal or piece of candy wrapper. But no matter the form, each page is a part of the heart saying goodbye.

Then tomorrow, each of us will go our separate ways, those notebooks will be carefully stored in a drawer or a corner of the desk. Sometimes, we accidentally open them, and we will touch a carefree time, a season of love that quietly passed by. Then we will smile and feel warm, because we once had such beautiful days.

So, the season of yearbooks is always the season of emotional lines, of lingering hugs, of tight handshakes, of regrets and even the clumsy love of first love in school.

Nearly 20 years have passed. The memories of those last summer days of high school are still in my heart. As I sit down to write these lines, the familiar lyrics from the song “Love Poetry” come flooding back to my mind: “The lines in the autograph book were already wet before I could write them down/The red flowers were never given to me once/That memory was in the rainy afternoon after school/The two of us on the same path, why do I feel so nostalgic?”

Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/luu-but-post319358.html